The mere mention of the Loess Plateau may conjure up images of barren hills and desolate gullies. Those, however, have largely become a thing of the past in Yan'an.

Since 1999 when a major reforestation initiative was launched, the northwestern city located at the heart of the plateau has transformed itself.

"The Loess Plateau has turned from yellow to green," said Feng Zhisheng, an official with the Laoshan Forestry Bureau, during an interview with Beijing Review on July 8.

Official statistics show that from 1999 to 2017, Yan'an created 1.4 million hectares of forest, of which 718,000 hectares were restored from former farmland. Its forest coverage rate was 46.35 percent in 2017, up 12.7 percentage points from 1999.

The plateau suffered from severe ecological degradation because of excessive reclamation and overgrazing. Over the past two decades, the environment has seen a remarkable improvement, which is also evidenced by growing precipitation and a decrease in sandstorms, Feng said.

Yan'an's green assets are now worth hundreds of billions of yuan, he added.

(Reporting from Yan'an, Shaanxi Province)

Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo

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